In the past I’ve explained how news media manage the new. There are multiple ways including the stories they choose to cover, how they choose to cover them, and the stories they choose not to cover. When the news media manage the news rather than reporting it, it’s propaganda. I hasten to point out that not all propaganda is promoted by the news media but they’re promoting an extraordinary amount of it.
There are multiple forms of propaganda, too. For example, propaganda can be either good or bad. My standard would be that propaganda that unites us is good while propaganda that puts each other at daggers drawn is bad. Others might have other standards. I think that intentions are a lousy way to determine whether something is good or bad because not only are they unknowable but they are rarely pure.
I’ve been thinking about starting a recurring feature, “Propaganda of the Day/Week”. It’s everywhere these days. Just about every subject is filled to the brim with propaganda and IMO most of it is bad.
I’m accepting nominations for biggest propaganda topics. One of the things that interests me about the subject is that frequently the same subject has conflicting propaganda. That’s true of COVID-19, both political parties, the president, and the Russia-Ukraine War.
A couple of last points. For something to be false it must be a) falsifiable and b) proven false. And something need not be false to be propaganda but it helps.
Can we even agree on what is false? Some person said something is held to be evidence that is just as good as large, multi center trials with controls, transparent methods with outcome variables defined ahead of time and solid statistical methods.
Steve
As noted in the post something does not need to be false or even falsifiable to be propaganda. IMO it would be easier to agree on the truth value of things that are falsifiable if people would stop lying when it serves their political purpose. (remember my definition of lying: deliberate statement of something that is untrue with an intention to deceive). The most obvious example of that is A. Fauci’s lie about facemasks. He believed what he was saying was untrue but said it anyway to serve what he thought was a higher good. That didn’t just call anything he might have to say into question, it called everything that any public health official might say into question.
“, it called everything that any public health official might say into question.”
Everyone lies sometime, even if it is a white lie. What you have set up is a belief system where we cannot believe anyone, hence my claim there can be no agreement on what is false. Also, Fauci had a boss(es). They didnt correct him or make him retract. Should we also question them? Of course by your reasoning. Which is actually how I think it should work. With good leadership you are responsible for your staff. However, not holding leadership responsible and only blaming lower level employees is consistent with much of modern management.
The reality is that individual health systems and providers were free to act based on their understanding of the literature.
Steve